2015 Karmen Isabella Pinot Noir

The silky sweetness intertwines with bright acidity to create a charming and delightful mouthfeel. A long, powerful finish lingers with the taste of tart Santa Rosa plum fading into citrusy pomegranate.

The Wine
One of the hallmarks of our Karmen Isabella Pinot Noir is its consistency vintage to vintage. We are fortunate to own and farm amazing vineyard properties in the picturesque Russian River Valley, especially for this extremely delicate grape. With a rich, bright ruby color, aromas of raspberry, cherry, and jasmine intermingle. The Manzana Vineyard brings in round mouthfeel and fruit character while the Thomas Road Vineyard adds a layer of earthiness. Marty’s Vineyard brings in amazing cherry and raspberry. Combining them all leads to a chewy Pinot Noir with notes of Himalayan blackberry, marionberry, red currants, and boysenberry interspersed with sweet tobacco leaves on its earthy foundation. This complex Russian River Valley Pinot Noir benefits with bottle age. Karmen Isabella, is a family designation from our Sisters Collection, named for Joe and Tracy Dutton’s youngest daughter, the “old soul” in the family. Quiet, unassuming, and a detail-oriented perfectionist, she personifies the complex layers you want in a Pinot Noir that captivates.

Ratings

92 Points Planet Grape; 90 Points Wine Advocate

Vineyard Notes

We chose fruit from Thomas Road, Manzana, and Marty’s vineyards from the more than 80 sites that Dutton Ranch farms. Each of these vineyards are certified Sonoma County Sustainably-Farmed and Fish- Friendly. The vineyard and Pinot Noir clone mix shows a balance of red fruits with lush texture, as vines planted in Goldridge soil exhibit.

Production Notes

Harvested at night, the fruit is hand-sorted and gently destemmed. The crushed fruit is placed into small open-top fermenters. The must is coldsoaked for five days to gently extract spice and fruit characters, while minimizing harsher tannins. We punch-down up to three times daily to coax out a rich color and intense flavors during the early fermentation stages. The individual lots are then pressed and racked into French oak barrels to age. We selected clone 115 for elegance, spice notes, and bright
fruit flavors and clone 828, which typically has smaller clusters, for structure and darker color. We blended them in early summer to allow the wine to marry and settle before bottling. This wine was filtered.